Critical Essay by Jillian Sandell

SOURCE: “Telling Stories of ‘Queer White Trash’: Race Class and Sexuality in the Work of Dorothy Allison,” in White Trash: Race and Class in America, Routledge, 1997, pp. 211–30.

In the following essay, Sandell explores the class distinctions and prejudices in the works of Dorothy Allison, noting that even specialized communities (e.g., lesbian and gay communities, racial groups) have class-based biases and fears.

The stories I told about my family, about South Carolina, about being poor itself, were all lies, carefully edited to seem droll or funny.

—Dorothy Allison1

It's the dirtiest secret of the lesbian community, the only thing that no one wants to talk about … And it's the one thing that threatens us—individually and collectively—more than any other issue in our community. Class.